Gov. Jerry Brown signed two bills this week that should help root out conflicts of interest among elected officials.

One gives the state Fair Political Practices Commission power to penalize politicians’ conflicts that involve contracts. The other authorizes the FPPC to set up a database for public officials to file their financial disclosure reports, allowing the public to more easily judge for itself whether the officials might have conflicts of interest.

Both bills are good for the public, whether they end up showing that conflicts play too great a part in elected officials’ decisions or the converse, that voters can be confident their representatives are careful to avoid such conflicts.

It’s already illegal for a public official or employee to make a public contract in which he or she has a financial interest. Enforcement can come only through criminal prosecutions by the state attorney general or the local district attorney — unlike other conflicts of interest set forth in the Political Reform Act of 1974, which the FPPC can enforce through civil or administrative actions.

Assembly Bill 1090, by Democrat Paul Fong of Campbell, signed by the governor Tuesday, expands the FPPC’s authority to enforce contract conflicts of interest without affecting prosecutors’ ability to do so. It makes sense for all suspected conflicts of interest to fall under the same enforcement mechanisms.

AB 409, by Democrat Sharon Quirk-Silva of Fullerton, would improve the system under which public officials, from the local to the state level, file annual reports disclosing their own personal finances, allowing the public to judge whether their investment holdings or gifts received might constitute conflicts of interest. Now, those reports are filed on paper and stored in city halls and county government buildings up and down the state.

A database maintained by the FPPC will make it much easier for voters to keep tabs on all their representatives.

At the same time, Brown vetoed a bill that called for a study of how to modernize Cal-Access, the state’s online database of campaign spending and lobbying. But the governor vetoed the bill because of another provision it contained, and said he would order his administration, in consultation with the FPPC and secretary of state, to recommend the best way to improve campaign disclosure. That’s a worthy project.